Event Summary

The “Open Government” movement has encouraged governments around the world to open up their data to the public to view, analyze, and utilize in ways that will benefit us all.

One recent local example of this is when “The Rapid: Transit Authority” released their transit feed data to integrate with Google Maps.
Another recent example of this is the “Grand Rapids 311 Customer Service Center” which offers a single point of contact for city services and programs with the mission of making the City more efficient, transparent, and responsive to Grand Rapidians.

These technology advances can bring about better transparency and efficiency; however, their effectiveness is only as good as the data in the system.

This is why the “Open Data” movement is so tightly integrated with “Open Government”. In order to accomplish all this, there must be agreed upon ways to organize and sort this data so it is searchable and shareable across platforms. Therefore, Open Data Standards have been developed that specify how a dataset should be structured for better interoperability.

For citizens; this means access to better digital tools with timely information, as well as improving communication and relationships with public leaders.

For governments; the process of opening up data gives the organization a chance to analyze its entire data ecosystem, improve internal operations, track improvements & results, and make better informed data-driven decisions.

This event will give attendees an overview of Open Gov/Data, explore the benefits of Open Data Standards, and discover its impact both locally and nationally.